Want to boost your wellbeing? Rest

How much time do you spend resting? We aren’t talking about sleeping here, we are talking about being awake but doing not much. In a technology driven world where everything is available all the time, rest has become devalued but according to a new survey we need it more than ever.

The new survey was headed by researchers from Durham University and was done online. In the end more than 18,000 people responded from 134 different countries in what was dubbed the “Rest Test”.

Those who said they felt they got more rest than average had wellbeing scores twice as high as those who wanted more rest.

The results showed that on average being younger and coming from a high socio-economic status household was correlated with having fewer hours of rest. Additionally, those who felt they needed more rest scored lowest on ratings of wellbeing and similarly those who said they felt they got more rest than average had wellbeing scores twice as high as those who wanted more rest.

If you want to build more restful activities into your day the researchers also asked the respondents the activities they found most restful and the top five were: reading (58 per cent), being in nature (53.1 per cent), being on your own (52.1 per cent), listening to music (40.6 per cent), and doing nothing in particular (40 per cent).

It seems that rest is linked to being on your own and for your own wellbeing you need a bit of that “me” time.